Users Not “Liking” Facebook, LinkedIn

In a recent survey conducted by the American Customer Satisfaction Index in which 6,200 Internet users were surveyed, Facebook Inc (NASDAQ:FB) and LinkedIn Corp (NYSE:LNKD) ranked the lowest among social media sites while Pinterest took the top spot in the query conducted in May.

Facebook controversial study

It’s important to note that the survey was conducted prior to Facebook admitting to conducting a controversial study that saw Facebook playing with users’ emotions through the manipulation of their News Feeds that could have had a detrimental affect on its rankings had the study been conducted after the news broke. Social media companies rarely rank high in ACSI studies ranking only higher than some of the most hated industries: airlines, Internet service providers and cable companies.

Social media in jeopardy?

“Even with improvements across the board, e-business — and social media in particular — doesn’t do well in terms of user satisfaction,” Claes Fornell, ACSI chairman and founder, said in a statement. “It is rare to see strong growth in an industry with such low customer satisfaction. However, several of the major players seem to have realized that their long-term prospects may be in jeopardy unless they do better.”

That, however, hasn’t been the case with Facebook, which has seen both strong first quarter earnings and large gains in its stock price. Facebook is set to make its earnings call following market close today.

The ACSI, which is an economic research program overseen by the University of Michigan, showed that Google outranked its competitors. Whether Bing, Yahoo, and AOL are truly Google competitors is another story all together. Those surveyed largely showed their approval for Google’s search interface on both mobile and desktop.

“Google has some of the most satisfied customers in all of ACSI, and given its enormous lead in search engines, it is unlikely that the competition is going to dislodge Google’s very loyal customer base,” the ACSI said.

The best of the rest

Even though Facebook ranked low among social media companies it was up 8% climbing from 59% satisfaction to 67%. LinkedIn enjoyed the identical numbers in its rise that kept it at the bottom. Twitter edged the two at 69% after gaining 6% from last year.